MRI characterization of new kiwifruit selections

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a technique known mainly for its medical and diagnostic applications and is capable of producing non-destructively high resolution images of any internal section of the analysed sample. MRI has been widely applied in food science during the last decade, mostly for investigating fruits and vegetables, and several studies are present in literature, mainly concerning the determination of the internal morphology and the evolution of tissues during postharvest ripening and storage. MRI proved to be a powerful tool in food quality assessment, providing informative images about the spin density distribution, mostly water molecules, and the relationship between water and cellular tissues. Kiwifruit have been extensively studied over the years; in the present work, 6 new selections have been investigated by means of MRI. The internal morphologies of these selections have been compared to fruit of the cultivar 'Hayward'. Several changes were observed, which differ from each selection to the other and will be briefly illustrated.